You Can Take the Boy Out of the Sea Organ But…
Thoughts on Transformative Places
As it goes with momentous things, I was telling someone about my 100 days of solo-travel through Europe, and I was talking about the sea organ at Zadar.
This is one of the most surreal places I have ever been to.
I know I have told you about this before, but this time is different. I am thinking a lot about places, why some make me feel amazing. This time is different. I want you to understand how truly unusual this place is and how it is a radical break from the ordinary.
My Arrival to Zadar
My flight into Croatia landed late at night. It was around midnight as I got off the shuttle and walked into the old town, a segment of the city still protected by its medieval walls and small roads from modern development. The stone appeared glass-like and smooth. I was astonished as I entered this empty place, feeling alive and lucky to witness such a silence.
In the morning, I walked through the main street toward the water. There were sections of ruins along this road, Roman remains, and the sea lingered just beyond.
I cannot recall how I learned about this place. I do know that a dear friend of mine had gone before me. She said I had to make it fit while we were talking about my one-way trip. I found the sign she mentioned before, a quote from Alfred Hitchcock posted at the beginning of the boardwalk saying that here are the most beautiful sunsets in the world. It’s interesting that a master of suspense and horror can also be an authority on beauty.
The Organ and the Unreal
It is important to know this right now: it is still happening.
The sea organ is an art installation built into the edge of the boardwalk that outlines the old town. At this edge of the city, the water laps up and against the cut stone, hitting the pipe structure underneath the steps to make music. As long as the waves come, the music plays.
And so it was that I arrived there, hearing it before seeing it. The score of the waves sounds as slow as you’d imagine but with a tone of tiredness, eeriness or ease, and wonder. I would later witness this place to also be the point where everyone joined to see the sunset, but it was nearly empty then.
I stood softly in the middle and sat down on the steps. I stayed for a long time. Already, this place was incredible to experience. The music is infinite, as long as there are waves, and I rested there just to listen. It was a beautiful moment of slow-living. And, as I was in my long moment of taking this in, a small boat cruised by, sending its wake at the organ.
The organ boomed. The wake hit the pipes, and the wind surged underneath me. I found myself in the middle of a hurricane as the music roared. My soul sang, and I heard it surge, “yes” in the middle of this. This moment would later return in a long poem I wrote during this trip, and I wrote about it in my travel memoir saying that I didn’t know what I was looking for when I came here, but I knew when I heard it.
You Can Take the Boy Out of the Sea Organ But…
How many places do I know that can do this? How close am I to wonder? I want to tell you that this moment there and this memory here bring to me the total power that place has to offer us: the definition of potential. I think of a creative writing professor and creative mentor here and say that place determines what can happen. Again, how close am I to wonderment right now?
Again, the organ is playing still and even now.
I know you know this, and maybe it is a cliche, but it is profound to me at times how you can leave a place but a place stays with you. Usually, this is an expression to talk about someone’s customs when they still act a certain way that is very particular to a place. For example, ask any New Yorker or Californian outside of their homebase, and they’ll tell you. (You probably don’t even have to ask them about it.)
I believe this expression we have is profound because it moves down to an almost molecular level of your way of being as well.
I think about the waves. I remember the boom-shock of the wake hitting the rock and the wind roar. I was astonished. I learned a special kind of walking softly and listening there. Perhaps that moment lit a small fire because at times, not only do I still hear it, but I still live with it.
There, I was shook by the full power of the place and the art (I am, after all, talking about an installation of pipes). With location as instructor, I was taught that even brief visits to a place can not only never leave you but also make you different.
I arrived with a sense of how to revere something, and the organ grew that in a way as unique as itself. I still find time to walk and listen like I did then. I still hear the music.
More soon,
Trevor
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